Firelight
by PallaPlease
Summary: [During TM.]  Rick and Evelyn share shots of whiskey, and Evelyn has problems communicating.  Great fun, that.  Rick/Evie of the kinda-sorta-maybe variety.  [Finished.]


Notes: This fic was a pain in the neck to write; not only am I sure someone has already used this idea (and probably better, knowing my luck), but Rick's character was murder to write. I'm still not wholly happy with this - it feels choppy - but it's finished, so there's always that. ^^;  
  
Set: Immediately before the sloshed Evelyn scene, following the Med-jai attack on camp. Jonathan's asleep and Rick is sharing shots of whiskey with Evelyn.  
  
--  
  
--  
  
Firelight  
  
--  
  
In hindsight, it had really been her idea in the first place to share little secrets, small confessions – so long as he promised not to tell anyone. Fine, he had grinned as the firelight glittered along the traces of Irish red in his hair, so when does this arrangement end? She thought it outrageously unfair, that a man as reactive and beguilingly irritating as he could be so boyishly cute; really, those lovely eyes of his were completely wasted on him.  
  
Which, she decided vaguely, was why they were trading swigs of whiskey and staring at the stars together as Jonathan snored to the side, and not because she felt any lingering whatever-it-was for his occasional bits of unexpected kindness, as that simply was not the case. She tilted the bottle as if considering the alcohol they were supposed to be rationing and used it to hide her edged frown. Rick O'Connell, she decided, was too charming and brutally male - impulsive and oblivious, if with an odd sensitivity - for his own rakish American good.  
  
Said rakish Rick O'Connell was currently muttering something under his breath and tapping his booted foot rhythmically in the warm, stagnant Hamunaptra air, looking simultaneously eight and ageless. His calloused hands were trailing the length of a worn revolver she had decided was his favorite, his eyes unfocused but still seeing the weapon as his fingertips brushed it. The firelight danced, painting the dusty gold of his skin in shadows, passing silver over the gun and shades of fiery sun in his hair; she took a vicious swig of the whiskey and wincing at the sharp taste, poked his shoulder with the butt of the bottle.  
  
"Huh?" he asked absently, clicking the barrel into place. He jabbed it into its appointed holster, shaking his hand before grabbing the offered bottle and grinning lopsidedly at her. "Bottom's up," and he tilted his head back to drink a quick, heavy mouthful. His throat moved with the burning liquid and in opposition with her slight discomfort, looked pleased at the texture. "God, I haven't had a good whiskey in ages." He shook his head and tipped it back to her.  
  
"If you'll forgive my asking," Evelyn ignored his sarcastic snort and pressed on, sipping at the fermented drink, "what was it, exactly, you were," she gestured vaguely, staring curiously at him as her hand hesitated and plummeted back into her soft Bedouin skirt before she decided on the proper word, "reciting, was it? You rather seemed to like it." Disconcerted by his steady, piercing granite gaze and the boyishly sweet twist of his jaw as he mulled over her query, she took answer to an unspoken question in a final sip of whiskey.  
  
Accepting the green bottle, he nodded thanks and studying the brilliant pinpoint constellations above, drank. She supposed it was an inevitable sign of drinking too much that she actually wasted a moment watching the muscles in his cheeks and throat shiver. He hadn't even shaved, she reminded herself grumpily. Though it was probably the drink giving her cause to think his hygienic failing - by England's standards, in any case; even shadow whiskers were currently frowned on - was somehow attractive, she still all but snatched the bottle back from him. O'Connell arched an eyebrow but for once said nothing.  
  
"Burns," he answered after a moment, staring at her with his odd, one-side-higher grin. "Of no relation to our American buddy. He was a Scottish poet who, uh, liked women." He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully, but she was far more interested in the part that revealed O'Connell was even aware that something called poetry existed.  
  
She lowered the bottle, rolling her lips together to absorb the full of the taste, and studied him with frank surprise. "You know what poetry is, Mister O'Connell?" she asked with only a little sarcasm. The alcohol had begun to impair her enough to warrant a great deal of innocent curiosity in her speech.  
  
"Yes, Evelyn," he answered, not overwhelmingly flattered with her honesty, "I know what poetry is." Grabbing the bottle firmly and insistently prying it from her limp fingers, he looked at her with his amused, but forcibly solemn expression. "One of the sisters at the orphanage thought we should learn some famous writings - y'know, poems and Shakespeare, that sort of thing - and I had to learn this poem by Robert Burns when I was ten. Son of a bitch even wrote in a Scottish accent."  
  
Choosing to ignore his choice of words, she blinked awkwardly and questioned, feeling suddenly sober, "You were in an orphanage?" In that moment she felt a surge of kinship with him, remembering how difficult the years following her parents' death had been and feeling something truly frightening for O'Connell then: not safe and normal pity, but a dark and old thing she uneasily had no name for. "Oh, I understand," she added quietly, closing her eyes to the firelight playing along the highlights in his hair; she changed her train of thought quickly, thinking to ask, "Is this Robert Burns fellow one of yours, then?"  
  
It took him a moment of watching her, his eyebrows knitting slightly as he deciphered her comments, before he chose to focus on the last. "O'Connell is an Irish name," he said with a small grin, as if explaining some well-known fact.  
  
Evelyn attempted an offended glare at what she assumed was an attack on her intelligence, the effects of which were arguable, and sitting painfully upright, jerked the whiskey from him. "I will have you know, Mister O'Connell, that I haven't been bosom buddies with any Irish or Scotsmen, so I should think my," she grasped for the proper wording, continuing triumphantly, "knowledge of affairs isn't--"  
  
"Good?" he guessed, prompting as he moved, slightly, to gaze her. He was smiling at her, friendly and almost affectionately, the firelight casting his sandy tan into ethereal bronze.  
  
Another watery glare was granted him and she swirled a small mouthful of the whiskey down her throat, feeling that glimmer of sympathetic sobriety popping into a state of pleasant, not fully drunkenness. "I don't need you finishing my sentences," she took another draught, tossing her shoulders back as she absorbed the drink, letting it serve as fuzzy fuel, "and if you had any decency at all," which he surely didn't, because if he did, he - oh, God, she had no idea, "you, you would, you - well, it's plainly obvious you haven't got any decency."  
  
He stared at her a moment, one eyebrow raised as his smile dwindled just a bit. "Okay, Evelyn, I think it's about time we let Jonathan have a go at the whiskey," he finally said, his deep baritone lightening as he gently claimed the bottle. "We can drink more later," he added, leaning over to rummage for the cork in the bag near the snoring Englishman; Evelyn made an "oh" sound and moved her legs out of the way, fingers gently tugging her gauzy skirts to allow him better room and hiding her inexplicable shiver when his hand brushed near her calf. He glanced at her, once, and said a brief, "Thanks," before carefully propping the bottle in Jonathan's crooked arm. "There we go."  
  
"Jonathan's asleep," she thought to point out, giving him a sardonic look. "How, pray tell, is he to drink?"  
  
"Haven't a damn," O'Connell answered with a smile, clapping his hands together as he rocked to his feet. He shifted in his dusty boots, claiming his balance, and as she blinked endearingly at him, he stuck his worn hands down, grabbing at her wrists. "Get up, Evelyn," he grunted, pulling the surprised woman to her feet.  
  
"What on earth are you doing?" she cried, alarmed, and tripped, pitching forward. Startled and reacting instinctively, his arm shot forward and clamped around her middle as if to repel or hold still a threat. "O - oof - Connell!" she gasped, flushing with mortification. "I was happier with the booze, thank you!"  
  
"Well, yeah," he replied, levering her around and trying not to damage her garment, "but you couldn't even think of ways to insult me. You're really good at that, insulting filthy scoundrels who can't kiss. That's what I am, right?" And, yes, he was taking a dig at her, but he had a teasing tone, his expression a grin, that together securely made it more a friendly gesture than an insult; taking his word very seriously, she wobbled and fell back against the protective arm. He jerked, surprised, and caught her again, one hand near her shoulders as the other held her waist carefully still. "Careful!"  
  
"You," she snorted, amused, into his shoulder, "careful." The idea being thus humorous to her, she giggled and tried to take a step back, nearly sagging to the ground as soon as she moved. He captured her before she could fall yet again, swinging her over their makeshift bench to plant her in more stable sand. "Why, Mister O'Connell," her eyes sparkled mischievously, "do you treat all the women you meet this way," his arm, apparently, was still around her waist, "or am I special?"  
  
Gently, he maneuvered his arm away from her and turned around, kicking his feet in a large semicircle between them to clear away the loose, shifting sand from the top. He glanced back up at her, the curved tendrils of his bangs encircling his brow before one of the sudden, bursting winds tunneled past, sweeping his red-tinged brown hair to the side. "Put your hands up like this," he demonstrated, cupping his hands outward in preparation of catching a fist or - she was certain this had happened before - something being hurled at him. "It's good for blocking."  
  
"Why do I need to know this?" she asked absently, but moving her hands up, mirroring, anyway. "I doubt our friends in the black want to trade blows with a woman." She straightened her chin, a defiant expression at odds with her words, almost as if she were challenging him to dare reply.  
  
He merely shrugged and took a fighter's stance, broad frame moving so his fisted and bent arm faced her. "I'm more worried about some of the men camped here," he easily responded, rolling back slowly on his heels. "It, um, wouldn't, you know," he was rather cute, she decided, when he was fumbling for words, "be, uh, right or - so, straighten your shoulders," he changed subjects abruptly, a faint scarlet glint to his cheeks. "You want an even line, easier to catch or hit back, even hit 'em with their own fist--"  
  
"Thank you," she said abruptly and he paused, eyes shadowed by the traces of old darkness cast by the firelight. He looked lost, right then, but more puzzled than endearing little boy, and she sought to clarify, "You know, for that set of tools you gave me this morning. It was rather sweet of you." She supposed she was imagining the serious, but pleased expression on his face, nearly the same as when he presented the unexpected gift to her. "But I don't think the occasion demands I learn how to fight, since handsome men such as yourself never pay much attention to girls like me."  
  
To judge by his odd expression, she must have crossed some boundary or another; whether she was too tired or too fuzzy-minded by way of the alcohol, she still found she was not too terribly concerned with this.  
  
"And do you know what, Mister O'Connell?" she demanded crossly, defensive stance all but forgotten, "I don't think it fair you should be so - so - so you! You're a very unusual man, you know." She went so far as to poke her finger at him, a small scowl on her face as he watched her, a look of thought coming to his face, as it would if he were trying to work something out. "And why, for that matter, am I to be, to be," she thrust her arm up indignantly, "ignored by everyone? The Bembridge Scholars, Jonathan," she felt a pang of guilt - he was a bit immature, but had never ignored his "baby sister" - as he snored in his sleep, but forged on, "even you, and I saved your life."  
  
"Hands up," O'Connell replied and, hiding the offense that he had just proven her point, she numbly obeyed.  
  
Damn it, there was no reason for her to feel so bereft or hurt that O'Connell had just ignored her rant, as O'Connell of all people should be the last one whose opinion hurt her, but - he *had* been kind to her at times, tongue-tied or grinning lopsidedly in surprise or even the fact that he treated her like an equal. All that and he had only helped her up after the rifle kicked her back - *that* had been a surprise - without saying anything rude or demanding to know what a woman was doing with a firearm, as that man from the other team frequently mentioned such things. She thought she might hate that Egyptologist.  
  
"I'm, um, glad you, uh," he was tilting his head toward his shoulders, again solemn but nervous, "liked the, uh, the tools." He shrugged as she stared and then raised his fists, firming his jaw. "I'm not going to hit hard, but try to catch my fist, okay?"  
  
He isn't a cad! - thought part of her with delight, right before he swung his fist in a slow, calculated arc, carefully restrained. Having missed his warning, Evelyn jumped, startled, and fell backwards with a shriek. "O'Connell!" she started angrily, but then convulsed into giggles. The wind was blowing a light powdering sand in her face and she contorted her features, trying to protect her mouth.  
  
"Jesus, Evelyn!" he swore, falling to one knee beside her and brushing hair from her face. "I thought I told you to catch my fist! How do you walk without tripping?" He sounded more concerned than insulting, and since he looked so awfully sincere and adorable about it, she dizzily thought she might do well to forgive him his rudeness.  
  
"I do it just fine," she nodded seriously. "Meanwhile, if you don't mind, would you please help me up? I can't seem to find my feet." She tried to glance around her shrouded skirts and wriggled her ankles to no avail; obviously having more common sense, he grabbed her wrists again and hauled her up, brushing clumps of sand out of her thick, tangled curls. "You know, O'Connell," she said conversationally, head propped on his shoulder as her feet dug into the sand for purchase, "your eyes rather look like blue granite - the Egyptians did adore using granite." She looked up at him solemnly and he watched her hesitantly, eyebrow cocked and the corner of his mouth twitching up behind his ghost of a beard.  
  
The fire crackled and tossed its light vainly to the sky, glimmering and soft as it spun endlessly about, feeding upon itself as the wind whistled coldly; darkness and death would come, but for now there was firelight and an awkward life that grew and delicately wove itself in a glittering pattern of desert diamonds.  
  
--  
  
--  
  
End!  
  
--  
  
Feedback: Would you mind terribly? ^^  
  
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by Universal, but Stephen Sommers is a genius (I need to mention that). I'll buy Jonathan for all of a nickel, though; it's awfully lonely here in Ismalia and I need a good laugh. 


End file.
